Mum's the Word
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: When a test involving a new Q Dept. employee and Semtex chewing gum results in most of a test lab blowing up and Q and his trainee Rachael Ronson landing up in hospital, Q accidentally lets slip something involving him and M that could end both of their careers. Will it? M/Q mother/son (literally!)
1. Chapter 1

"Ronson, is there even a slightly remote chance of this working?" It all started with a simple request from James; more equipment that blew up. Q being Q had taken that challenge head-on...until flighty youngster Rachael Ronson – a teenaged computer genius and one of Q's least favourite employees – had caught wind and taken over the entire thing. The end result was lying before them; Semtex chewing gum, or as Q liked to call it, a disaster waiting to happen. The general idea was that fifteen seconds after saliva emersion, the stuff blew whatever it was stuck on to Kingdom Come. However, in the spirit of reality's rule 'nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems', Q was apprehensive about testing the stuff to say the very, very least.

"Safe as houses, I'll assure you, Sir," Ronson's posh (for lack of a better phrase) central London accent and formal way of holding himself reminded Q of an extra from 'Allo 'Allo, and he rolled his eyes at her prim, enunciated words and the shimmers catching the walls as she pulled goggles over her eyes. Ronson's dress sense wasn't overly appealing to Q; it was always the same. Lots of black. And lots of sparkly. Why on earth anyone would want a sequined blazer was beyond Q as he adjusted his own safety goggles over his black-rimmed glasses, flicking his tousled hair from his eyes, but he was sorely resisting the temptation to just bark at her to shut up, stop giggling and take the damn thing off.

"Yes, all that could happen is you could end up directly responsible for the destruction of this entire lab and the potential killing of all twenty-four of my employees in one sweep, you and I included." His eyes caught the reflection of her hideous jacket on the wall as she raised her arm. He didn't even have to look at her to get irritated with her, though he had to admit, his overuse of gallows humour was rather stupid on occasion. "Ronson, wipe that smirk off of your face. Right, let's get this over with."

* * *

Chaos was an all too frequent occurrence in the Q Dept. and this sprung to Q's mind as the blast from Ronson's damned exploding chewing gum threw the pair of them in opposite directions. The stuff had detonated far too soon and as a result neither of them had gotten the chance to get away. And of course, it had just been too bloody powerful. Theoretically - a word which never should have been in invented - it caused a minor explosion; big enough to kill someone or blast through a door, but not so massive that it threw two people right across a test lab. Unfortunately, nothing went to plan as per usual.

Ronson hit the opaque glass wall, crying out as her arm shattered on impact. Q's first response was to tell her that this had been a pretty bloody stupid idea to start with, but as his mouth opened to attack with these choice words, he slammed against another wall. His glasses drove hard into the bridge of his nose, one lens smashed and the other hanging out of the frame, breaking the skin and making blood pour down his face, but this was the least of his worries. His head ground hard against the wall, and the crack caused by this had made him feel physically sick and caused an explosion of agony all through his body.

He couldn't move. Paralysed. Or so he half thought. If he actually was, he was going to strangle Ronson. Well, now the thought occurred to him, he realised that he actually wouldn't be able to if he really was. The irony in that was ridiculous; it would have been laughable had Q not been feeling as if his head was going to blow up. Fine then, he would have her electrocuted with her own smartphone.

Blood flooded his eyes as he slumped. Ronson, you compete and utter bloody idiot; his final thought before his eyes rolled up into his head and he passed out...


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello, yes I am still alive! Anyone still reading this? The chapters will be very short as there is masses that I SHOULD be updating but am procrastinating. For this, I apologize. Cuteness and a bit of a cliffhanger will follow (however, those who like Q's hair may cry.) Most of my research regarding brain surgery has come from IAMERIK's amazing 00Q fic 'Evelyn' (IAMERIK; if you're reading; UPDATE! PLEASE!) so may not be too reliable. I have a fear of googling medical stuff after I looked up gangrene (the picture of a guy with his balls rotting whilst still attached to him was just...ew.)**

* * *

Ronson sat outside of her boss's room in hospital, sobbing into her hands. If she hadn't had such a bloody _stupid_ idea in the first place, then this wouldn't have happened at all. Her right arm would still be intact (when she had hit the wall, her elbow had buckled and in effect fallen apart; about three bits of it had dislocated and it hurt like hell) as would be most of the Q lab and Q himself would never have smacked head-first against the metal door to the explosives test room. If that hadn't happened his skull wouldn't have cracked. If that hadn't happened, he wouldn't have had a brain haemorrhege. And if that hadn't happened, he wouldn't have just spent five hours in surgery, his IQ wouldn't be left likely to fall into the single digits due to everlasting brain damage, he wouldn't be likely to lose his job or even die as was the worst possibility.

She had never felt worse in her entire life.

* * *

M had know all along at the back of her mind that letting a flighty, hair-brained fifteen year old work in the Q Dept. was anything and everything but a good idea, computer genius and expert hacker or otherwise. This was what had torn it. She had all but died from sheer shock and fear when she had found out about the accident earlier that day (she herself had been on a flight back from Milan following debriefing 002 whilst he was in hospital following slight chaos involving a shotgun and a USB key) and now the rhythmic click of her high heels against the unpleasant mottled green lino was all that she let enter her ears and thoughts, which were clouded dark with worry for both the 'new girl' Rachael Ronson and Q far more for the latter and superior of the two.

When she eventually came to a room with a young ginger-haired teenager with a nasty black eye and her arm in plaster sitting crying her eyes out in facade, she knew exactly who was behind the door.

"Rachael-" she began, putting her hand gently on the girl's shoulder. The young woman flinched away.

"This is all my f-fault..." She cried through stilted breaths, shrinking away from M. "I'm going to e-e-end up losing my job but not like that m-matters any m-more. If Q d-d...you know what I'm talking about then..."

M nearly slapped the girl, but not from anger or any similar emotion. "Ronson, I won't get rid of you for one stupid mistake, you know I won't. Just explain what happened to you and Da-...Q. Please."

"I really don't know. We were testing some new kind of plastic explosive I came up with, it went wrong, then he hit the wall head-first and his skull cracked or something. He had this huge brain bleed and there's a chance that he's going to go into comatose or end up brain dead and it's all my fault..."

"Ronson, you need to calm down. Go to the ladies' and clean yourself up, then I think it might be an idea for you to go home." The tear-stained fifteen year old nodded, standing up and wiping her eyes with the side of her hand.

"Thank you, ma'am."

* * *

When she had here about to enter Q's room, M had been warned that she'd probably get quite a bit of a shock, but nothing had or could ever have prepared her for this. It had all been explained to her what had happened to him; how he had been in surgery to try and turn back any damage to his brain and skull and that he was likely to come round within the next hour, though the chance was high that they would have to put him to sleep again if the pain was too bad for him, and she had had a stab at guessing how he may have looked, but again, nothing could have gotten her ready for the shock of cold reality.

Dead. That was the only way you could have described how Q looked. What could easily have been every various kind of bleeping machine in the one room was plugged into his arms and face, mostly which as obscured by an oxygen mask. There was visible damage done to his face by his glasses; a deep bloody groove was scored into the bridge of his nose and both eyes blackened. The one thing that made tears well up in M's eyes and caused her to choke on a sob was the evidence of surgery wrought across all visible areas of his head, which were a lot bigger than usual as his black curls had been shaved down to nothing. It was now far too short to show his natural ebony waved chaos, or even to show as anything but tiny amounts of dark stubble stuck with congealed blood around the enormous incision in his razored scalp. More than ever, M wanted to rake her hands through his hair, but of course that wasn't possible.

She gently rested her forehead on his, kissing him gently. "Oh, Q darling...David...wake up soon baby, I need you here."

It was just unfortunate that, at that moment, Ronson had noticed that she'd left her bag in the injured Quartermaster's room. Because as she stuck her head round the door, M felt Q's grip on her hand tighten and the word that revealed all they had kept secret and all that could end both their jobs in three simple letters left his pallid lips.

"Mum..."


	3. Chapter 3

Among Q Branch, Rachael had always been considered as somewhat of a joker; still legally a child at just under sixteen and still a child in mind and spirit as well. Nobody had ever taken her seriously, though this could be put down to the fact that Q had been subjected to the Harlem Shake, the Hurr Durr Dog, the Youareanidiot virus, a Gangnam Style flash mob, persuaded to do The Cinnamon Challenge and she had been in the process of attempting to Rick-Roll the unfortunate Quartermaster before she had unwillingly blown up the lab and incapacitated the pair of them in the process. For this, M could semi-trust her as soon as she was sure that the girl had heard what Q had uttered in a drugged-up haze; if she was to go and tell the world that Q was the Boss's son, there was only likely to be a handful of idiots likely to take her seriously. But she couldn't be sure.  
"Ronson, forget what you just heard and get out," M glared at her with icy eyes, perhaps feeling a tad guilty at her rough handling of the teenager. "Now." She added for emphasis.

There was more on her mind right now as the girl gasped at both the sudden, one-syllable revelation, no matter how accidental it had been and M's outburst and turned quickly on her heel, out the door almost as suddenly as she had entered. Q had become more and more alert by the second before he could choke out more than the one-syllable natural utterance that just so happened to be exactly true. "Mum...I...L...Love you...Wh...what...Happene...d?"  
"It'll take a bit of explaining, darling..."

* * *

Attempting to sleep following what M had told him had happened, Q couldn't decide wheter or not he hated Ronson or whether he actually cared about her. Surely to God he couldn't after all that? But she...

He was fighting a losing battle with himself. God, _stop feeling sorry for bloody Ronson!_

But the scary thing was that he couldn't.

* * *

"God, Q, I', so bloody sorry..." A day later, and Q really did feel, in a word, shite. He could barely move, just about everything bloody hurt like hell, anesthetic had yet to ware off and so he felt like he was going to throw up just to chuck that into the mix as well, and the fact that Ronson was sitting bawling her eyes out and apologising every other breath. If he could have found the strength to do so anywhere in his body, he would have choked her there and then.  
"Ronson, you...aren't...helping...Go please."

She turned round and left, Q at that point realizing that she was dressed head to foot in maroon. That girl really did have no desirable sense of fashion whatsoever. It hadn't yet dawned on Q that Ronson had overheard his conversation with M the previous day. That was going to be a problem...

* * *

A brief look at Ronson's phone that night would look something like this;

GROUP MESSAGE SENT TO JESSICA MUNROE, NATHAN LOCKHART...27 MORE

_Hey guyz, it's Rachael. Do u no that M is Q's mum? xxx_


	4. Chapter 4

**Just so you know, the only OCs in this that are mine are Summer Bonham-Carter and Rachael Ronson. Lockhart, Munro, Paterson and all the rest of them belong to the amazing Naomi Gemcity. If you want to know more about them, read 'A View in the Life of Q'; it's brilliant :)**

* * *

It had been some considerable time since Ronson had decided to spill when M was eventually encountered with regards to Q. M certainly had better things to do than walk down to the Q Department with a few folders under her arm so as to look as if she was doing something other than just go and have a nose at how the techies were doing without their Quartermaster; she was currently procrastinating about five debriefings, some mission dossier that Mallory had wanted from her about a week ago now that still hadn't been done and shouting at 007 (currently leaving his abnormally large train of destruction in Panama) via her headset for going against all orders and killing his target as opposed to bring him in for questioning like he usually did - she was willing to pit everything in her purse that that was what he was ding currently - but she was willing to pretend that she had nothing else that needed done for the sake of her worried curiosity.

Needless to say, the Q Branch was currently in a combined state of boredom and anarchy. With no quintessential Quartermaster to tell them what to do or annoy, slightly more crazy Q Branch tech insects were attempting another Harlem Shake, though no-one seemed in the mood and as a result they only had about four people on it. Several were beached at their desks watching crap such as The Duck Song, Kitty-Cat Flushing the Toilet, Try Not To Laugh, Lolcats, Cyanide and Happiness, Nyan Cat and the Hurr Durr Dog on YouTube; Paterson, aided by agent 008 Summer Bonham-Carter, seemed to be trying to infect 007's laptop with the stripper virus 'Melissa' (the master spy, being the womanizer that he is, probably wouldn't care too much,) very few were doing any work at all and everyone else was simply crowded at the back of the room watching the residential puffer fish, Livingston, swimming about in the tank that occupied most of the room's back left corner.

M rolled her eyes and made to go out the door again until it dawned on her that this lack of work was probably not just a one off; it was almost definitely what had been going on every day in the six weeks since Q had ended up in hospital - M perhaps wasn't so worried about him as he was pretty much just being kept in for monitoring, but she knew that as well as having aviophobia, Q had a, for lack of a better term, thing about hospitals (probably something to do with the copious amounts of times he had seen her in a state of critical injury when she had been an agent) and had been as miserable as sin every time she had been in to see him - and she just couldn't ignore the fact that Q Branch was currently a dead zone.

"And what, exactly, is going on here?" M had to shout at the top of her lungs to be heard over The Harlem Shake and various 'nyan's, Duck Songs, annoying jingles and 'hurrdurrdurrdurrdurrhurrdurr durr's emanating from various speakers around the room, but she seemed to get her point across relatively well as almost every head in the room turned. "Munro!" The young woman looked around guiltily from the fish tank, staring at the floor and muttering something that sounded like 'yesma'am,sorryma'am' while M glared around the room."Well?"

"Em...Ma'am, it isn't what it looks like...Erm, well we were just...er..." One of the techies, Lockhart,who had been left temporarily in charge, scratched around frantically for an answer, but M cut him off with a look.

"I don't care what it looks like or what it is. I trust that Q sent you instructions as to what to do whilst he was...absent, yes?" A few agreeing mumbles came from various points around the room. "Well, I want the lot of you doing something more productive, so until what you've been instructed to do has been carried out, I'm having the Internet disabled, clear? And Agent Bonham-Carter, I don't care what you're doing in here, but you'll be needed elsewhere, so get out. And I'll be monitoring CCTV footage as well; if I catch you lot of imbeciles being so idiotic again, then I'll chuck the lot of you out on your heads. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that means fired! And I want everyone away from that bloody fish, or I swear to God I'm testing cyanide on that thing."

As the department started busily shuffling around and at least attempting to look as if they were doing something, M smiled contently and made to walk out for good this time, but before she had the opportunity, she felt a tap on her shoulder before turning round and finding Munro standing behind her, an uneasy smile on her face and what looked like a Pygmy Puff pinned to her shoulder. "Erm, Ma'am...I was just wanting to ask how Q was doing - I mean, it must be terrible for you, I mean, like, because he's your s-"

Before the girl could get all of the last word out, M had her practically by the throat against the opaque glass wall. "Who the hell told you?!"

"R-Rachael Ronson-"

"I swear to God, I'm going to kill her!" M growled through her teeth.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	5. Chapter 5

**Okay, excuse me for any errors in this as I'm not a big Trekkie. I just thought that Q probably would be ;) Now, who feels like playing Spot the Sue Sylvester Quotes? (there are two of them)**

* * *

"Where's Ronson?" The first thing Q said as Munro and Lockhart walked into his apartment, heaped under the 'necessary equipment' needed for the 48-hour Star Trek marathon that they'd come over for. This was the first time that the two Q-Branch insects had seen their boss since Ronson's somewhat arse-about-face experiment gone wrong, which had been six weeks ago now.

"Probably dead in a ditch," Lockhart muttered as he dumped his stuff by the couch, Munro having scooped up Q's pet kitten, Earl, whilst the grey ragdoll cat had been caught unawares, and she was now stroking and squealing over the thoroughly miffed ball of fluff. Q didn't have the heart to tell Munro - whom Earl was now 'kissing' - that the animal had been on the couch licking his backside until a few minutes ago. "M went off on one at her earlier and I have a bad feeling she's out on her arse."

"Fair enough. She hasn't blown up another test lab, has she?"

"No, she hasn't."

"Right. Munro, if you'd please put my cat down for five minutes, we have things we need to do," Q and Lockhart flopped onto Q's worn IKEA sofa, Munro rolling about on the floor with Earl. "Did you bring your Original Series and Next generation box sets?"

"_Who's a gorgeous kitty? Who's a gorgeous ki-_ what? Yes, I did. Hey, I just noticed how different you look with shorter hair and no glasses."

Q rolled his eyes. Yes, his hair had mercifully grown out quite a bit, but it was still just inch-long, downy, slightly wavy fluff - more reminiscent of the David Beckham that his dad had forced him to get when he was about thirteen rather than his usual floppy curls that he was comfortable with - and he was getting annoyed that his replacement glasses hadn't come yet; he'd already lost his backup contact lenses at least five times. "That aside, Ronson was meant to be bringing Enterprise."

"Never mind, who watched that anyway?" Lockhart quipped.

"You're right. Now, I have food and Netflix, which means movies," Q sighed now. "I also have a cat, Munro, and he eats cat food and that's it. Those After Eight mints were rather bad news for my bedroom carpet last time."

* * *

The next day - Sunday, but M being M had come in to attempt to de-paperwork her desk - and M charged hell-for-leather down to Q Branch for another of her random spot checks (this one was only a day after the last, but still slightly randomized)

"Erm, ma'am, about that palm-coded Baretta for 008-"

"If this is one minute late, Paterson, I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat; I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat and then on some dark, cold night I will steal away into your home and punch you in the face. Clear?"

"Crystal, ma'am."

Just as M was about to step into the elevator, she felt Mallory catch hold of her arm. "Mallory?" She looked at him, scowling in disgust as she realised the ridiculous amounts of gel he had smeared into his hair in an a futile attempt at disguising his receding hairline. "Sorry, but I can't help picturing small birds laying eggs in that hair, and I find it disgusting."

"My personal appearance out of this, can I have a word?"

* * *

Waking up caked in stale sweat and crushed popcorn was perfectly standard for Q in the event of one of his nerd marathons, but he could tell that as he stepped over Lockhart, his ringing phone in his hand and Earl crashed out on Munro's head, that this wasn't normal.

"Hello? Mum?...Yes, I'm awake...Come in? Why?...Ronson...Mm-hmm...you and I...What the bloody hell do you mean we're both fired?!"

TO BE CONTINUED...


End file.
